


The Northern Lights Are Burning

by Sunchales



Category: Cthulhu Mythos - H. P. Lovecraft, Hyperborean Cycle - Clark Ashton Smith
Genre: Alien Gender/Sexuality, Alien Sex, Bloodshed, Dinosaurs, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Non-Penetrative Sex, Other, egalitarian relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-20
Updated: 2014-06-20
Packaged: 2018-02-05 12:41:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1818910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sunchales/pseuds/Sunchales
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From across the world, Cthulhu answers Tsathoggua's call...and has a night full of thrills.</p><p>Updated to fix an embarrassing typo.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Northern Lights Are Burning

Lightning slashed across the ebon sky as Cthulhu flew above the polar wastes. Rain pelted Its massive body, but such nuisances as wetness and flaming bolts of electricity were immaterial to the Master of R’lyeh. 

The land of Hyperborea had been known to It only once before, when It attempted to lead Its sticky, gelatinous army of children in a siege against the creatures of the north. The frigidity of the atmosphere quickly proved too punishing for Cthulhu and Its spawn, who tended to prefer a balmy climate, and so they had no choice but to vacate the hemisphere and content themselves with their sea-girt metropolis. 

Tonight, however, Cthulhu would _not_ content Itself with what It possessed already, would not spend another hour grabbing hapless cetaceans that swam by the shores of Its kingdom and rubbing them against Its most sensitive region. Here, in the heart of the frozen north, squatted another lonesome Great Old One that awaited the caress of something as massive as Itself.

Upon spotting the crest of the cavern structure that It sought, Cthulhu swooped down from the thundering welkin and lit upon the stone cliff. After shrinking Itself slightly, Cthulhu managed to squeeze Its bulk through the mouth of the cave. On all fours, It began slopping down the corridors, sweeping every Voormi that crossed Its path off the ground and down to the pits below. A tyrannosaur, a product of one of the more ambitious projects enacted by Cthulhu’s star-headed former foes, ambled up to It. The reptile roared at the green leviathan, but Cthulhu extended one of Its fingers and impaled the brainless carnivore on Its claw. Blood gushed from the dinosaur’s chest and onto the cave floor, whereupon a rushing swarm of small lizards slipped in the crimson pool and fell to join the Voormis’ corpses.

With the tyrannosaur speared on Its claw, Cthulhu continued crawling down the tunnels to the bowels of Voormithadreth. Keeping Its prize out of reach of the lesser life forms was somewhat of a challenge, but Its other mighty hand was more than adequate to flick or crush the lizards, Voormis, and sloths that attempted to pester It.

After descending several more tunnels, Cthulhu glanced down at the next level of the cavern. Though the torches on the walls provided only scant illumination, It espied the silhouette of something equally colossal and flabby as Itself--could it be? Was Its paramour within Its immediate reach?

The slurping noises that emanated from beneath lit a fire in Cthulhu’s loins. Very few creatures inspired the Master of R’lyeh to lust, for appeasing oneself with a multitude of inferiors proved unsatisfying quickly. Only those that possessed power that compared to Cthulhu’s own were capable of arousing It. From the resonance of those guttural sounds, surely something titanic and lordly was licking up the life-juices of some small, helpless beasts. The very thought of twining Its body with this subterranean tyrant’s heated Cthulhu’s rapacious ichor.

So It swooped down and landed with a thunderous clatter on the floor of the cave. It caught the silhouette of what must be that gargantuan that had established contact with It and beckoned for Its slimy caress--and then the toad god turned around and made eye contact with It.

For a moment, neither uttered a sound; they merely gazed into each other’s burning globular eyes. Cthulhu blinked Its six eyes a few times, waiting for Tsathoggua to react with anything other than a vaguely interested look.

Finally, he said, "At last! You answered my mind's invitation to yours!"

Cthulhu extended Its claw to Tsathoggua and proffered the impaled tyrannosaur. Tsathoggua opened wide his mouth, bit the reptile’s head directly off, and began to chew it with a series of crunching noises that made Cthulhu pause and savor the moment. Tooth on bone--what more joyous sound could there be? 

After he swallowed the beast’s scaly flesh, he asked, “Is all of this delicious creature for me?” 

Cthulhu began a reply, but Tsathoggua, rather than await it, plucked the tyrannosaur’s headless corpse off of Cthulhu’s claw and slid the body into his maw.

The moment Tsathoggua started to chew, Cthulhu leapt up and pinned him to the ground. The ensuing _thud_ echoed through the entire cavern system, but if the impact injured Tsathoggua, then he evidently enjoyed it, for he simply licked his lips. Cthulhu stifled a bellow. Instead, It grabbed a fistful of Tsathoggua’s fur and yanked it out--which, far from leaving the patch of bare flesh that Cthulhu expected, only revealed another layer of black hair, so thick was the toad god’s coat. As Cthulhu reached for more, Tsathoggua reared up on his hind legs and kicked his partner in Its broad and prominent belly.

Once the Master of R’lyeh fell back against the cave wall, Tsathoggua raked his claws against Cthulhu’s flank, but the wounds sealed themselves up a few seconds later. Cthulhu’s sense of pride told It to rise to Its feet and return the flesh-gouging swipes, to avenge the slight against Its gesture of good will…but then It realized that It was exactly where It wanted to be. It scooted down the wall until It lay supine on the cave floor. Tsathoggua loomed over Its reclining form.

“I can tell from your stance that you are every bit as eager as I. Shall we, then?”

Cthulhu made a slurping sound with Its tentacles, as if It hungered for something only the Saturnian could provide.

Murmuring, Tsathoggua wrapped his arms around Cthulhu and slid atop Its heaving body. Cthulhu quivered as It did when It had first spread Its membraneous wings through the freezing skies of the Earth’s upper climes, but Its muscles trembled not from cold or fear. No, this was the moment, the one that Tsathoggua’s call from across the waves promised.

The toad god lifted two of Cthulhu’s tentacles, draped them in his hand, and started to stroke their tips with two of his fingers. The touch of Tsathoggua’s soft, sleek fur on Its rubbery, gelid flesh made Cthulhu shake all over. Soon the fingers became entire paws, and the stroking spread up and down the length of Cthulhu’s tentacles-- _ah_ , It now perceived the warm and coppery taste of that luckless tyrannosaur and the scent of other freshly slaughtered prey. Cthulhu twitched and bucked as Its senses reeled, but Tsathoggua clung to his partner’s side with his other arm. 

Now Cthulhu embraced Tsathoggua from below and ran Its own mighty hands across Its partner’s back. Tsathoggua cackled in a way that sent another shiver of delight across Cthulhu’s frame. 

“I _do_ so relish being petted, my dear. My sole request is that you slow the speed of your stroking.”

And Cthulhu took Its time, skimming the surface of Tsathoggua’s body at certain times and digging Its fingers under the fur at others. The depth Its massages managed to achieve seemed impressive to Cthulhu--sometimes, it felt as though Cthulhu’s hands were plunging beneath Tsathoggua’s skin--but the god on top hummed and moaned lowly, as if it enjoyed Cthulhu’s every act of reciprocation for the previous pleasure.

Within the next minute, both Great Old Ones were writhing simultaneously: Tsathoggua with his paws full of Cthulhu’s tentacles and Cthulhu assiduously caressing Tsathoggua’s back and sides. They, however, had not bothered to erect the wall of silence that Great Old Ones often did when mating, and so their impassioned vocalizations bounced off the cave walls and into the tunnels below.

“Hello?”

Cthulhu turned Its gaze away from Tsathoggua’s face and noticed something--another Great Old One, it appeared, with a segmented body and eight legs--staring at It from above. This purple newcomer hung upside down from a long gray thread. The blinking of its two shiny eyes bothered Cthulhu, so the tentacled one nudged Tsathoggua and pointed at this intruder.

“How rare it is for you to grace me with your presence,” said Tsathoggua. “Atlach-Nacha, this is Cthulhu. It came to visit me from R’lyeh, in the ocean to the south.”

“So I see,” the eight-legged god replied in its quavering voice. “Am I correct in gathering that the two of you are mates?”

“We are tonight. Would you care to join us, or have you simply come to gaze upon the majesty of our bodies splicing?”

Atlach-Nacha hesitated. “I took a brief respite from my eternal task to inform you that the sounds of your mutual enjoyment are bothering your neighbors. The serpent-people cannot concentrate on their experiments nor Haon-Dor on his sorceries. Perhaps even Abhoth has grown wakeful from your tussling, though I dared not ask.”

“Then do you suggest we remain silent in our activities, though our pleasure be too great to occasion no vocal testaments to it?”

“No. My sole request is that you lower the volume of your cries of passion. Not all of us are as fortunate as I in needing no sleep, and even those who are prefer peace and quiet.”

“Ah, but Atlach-Nacha, have you never tasted the tangy blood of another’s caress? The tender flesh of bodies becoming one? The moist innards of physical communion? Or were all those children of yours born without aid from a mate?”

The third Great Old One scoffed. “My business is bridging the chasm. The lust you seem to wallow in has no appeal to me. And perhaps if Cthulhu has spawn of Its own, then they may meet mine the next time It visits you.”

With a wave of Its hand, Cthulhu attempted to signal that It desired Atlach-Nacha’s absence. This meddling spider-god did nothing but distract Tsathoggua from his delightful ministrations. So what if their coupling stirred some lowly reptilians and offshoots of mankind? And the very idea of Cthulhu’s spawn meeting Atlach-Nacha’s was too ridiculous to be borne. How to show this miscreant the error of its ways?

Cthulhu molded Its body to a smaller, more maneuverable size--a trick It often used to Its advantage when storming fortresses and citadels--and rolled out from beneath Tsathoggua. Ignoring his dissatisfied grunt, Cthulhu took a step toward the cave’s edge, reached for the thread that Atlach-Nacha hung from, and pulled it toward Itself.

“What are you doing, you brute? Let go of my strand!”

And Cthulhu obeyed Atlach-Nacha’s command. It released the thread, sending the hapless spider-god careening all the way toward the other end of the cavern. When It heard the ensuing shrieks, Cthulhu felt a frisson of joy pervading Its being.

It then turned back to Tsathoggua and offered Its body again.

*** 

When the two finished their mating, Tsathoggua rolled off Cthulhu. The slimier half of the pair stood up, facing away from what might have been Its mate.

“Atlach-Nacha and I are not enemies, my dear. You needn’t have manhandled the poor creature so. But far be it from me to question your motives.”

These last words fired up a retort in Cthulhu’s mind. It nearly spat out something jagged and barbed and twisted enough to wound Tsathoggua deeply for daring even to hint that Cthulhu’s actions were in the wrong…but when It looked again, Tsathoggua was asleep.

After another session of crawling, Cthulhu emerged at the top of Mount Voormithadreth. Though the chill remained, the storm had stopped, and in its place stretched a sky dull with an all-encompassing gray pallor.

Cthulhu spread Its wings and mounted in the air. Soon It had left the great mountain behind, and all of Hyperborea followed shortly thereafter. Before Cthulhu knew, nothing lay below It but the broad and--for now--becalmed polar sea.

The waves that lapped over one another put Cthulhu in mind of Dagon. Where was he? Did he miss Cthulhu since they had parted ways after the war against the dwellers in the opposite side of the planet? Was he serious when he claimed to have found a life mate, one that could give birth to innumerable amphibious children despite Cthulhu’s protests that It, too, was capable of such a feat?

Wherever he was, the thought of him whipped up greater desire, desire that would not be thwarted by eight-legged busybodies that swung on threads. And even if the beloved Dagon had another mate, she did not necessarily have to be an _obstacle_ ….

**Author's Note:**

> Notes:  
> No one, to my knowledge, had ever written a Cthulhu/Tsathoggua fic before, so I wanted to remedy the dearth of such. 
> 
> If it wasn't clear from the outset, this fic is set after Cthulhu made peace with the Elder Things and before R'lyeh sank into the ocean. Also, I know that therapods were not brainless. Cthulhu might think they were, though. Speaking of which, Cthulhu might have something against Atlach-Nacha, but I don't. Atlach-Nacha is cool with me.
> 
> On the genders of the characters: in general, I conceive of Lovecraftian and Lovecraft-inspired monsters as sexless or possessing some sexual configuration or gender unknown to us. The exceptions are Dagon, who is male to Hydra’s female, and Tsathoggua, who Clark Ashton Smith said was male as opposed to female or androgynous. Lovecraft wrote that Cthulhu wasn’t female, but that doesn’t make It male. Furthermore, Cthulhu would arguably be unfamiliar with terms such as "gargantuan," "titanic," "tyrant," and possibly even "reptile," but I figured that using those words would be less annoying than devising R'lyehan equivalents for them.
> 
> The title comes from a line in "Bad for Good," written by Jim Steinman for Meat Loaf and recorded first by the former ( _Bad for Good_ , 1981) and then by the latter ( _Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster is Loose_ , 2006).


End file.
